Welcome Graduate Student Affiliates

October 5, 2023

Get to know incoming Graduate Student Affiliates, Thor Larson, Bora Ozaltun, and Karthik Tadepalli who joined the Energy Institute this summer.

Thor Larson

My research interests include the economics of energy innovation and the design of energy markets. As part of this, I support Energy Institute (EI) faculty in studying the distributional effects of electricity rate design. Prior to joining EI, I worked in Houston as a strategy consultant to design Texas’s retail choice plans. I graduated from Harvard College and grew up in Albuquerque, NM.

Bora Ozaltun

I am currently a second-year PhD student in Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE). I am taking field courses in Environmental Economics, Industrial Organization, and Econometrics. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, I completed my master’s degree at MIT and worked at Microsoft Research. I was drawn to UC Berkeley and the Energy Institute because of the great community of researchers. Outside of academia, I enjoy cooking, hiking, and traveling. Most of my traveling and cooking ends up centering around where I’m from, Turkey!

Karthik Tadepalli

I’m a third year PhD in the Economics department, and I’m interested in energy markets and environmental quality in developing countries. I grew up in Bangalore, India. Before Berkeley, I studied at the University of Pennsylvania. To me, Energy and Environmental Economics satisfies a rare trinity: it covers topics of tremendous social value, it allows for credible empirical research, and it interfaces with policymakers to have real impact. Most other fields can only have two of these things. That’s why I have ended up doing EEE research.